connecting government in the virtual world

Syndicate

Primary links

Join MuniGov

GovGrid Closes its Virtual Doors & MuniGov Moves to MOSES

Back when MuniGov made the decision to look outside the world of Second Life for a virtual site for the group, there were not many options. Because our group is focused on exploring and offering information about new technology, we made a decision to try setting up our own grid. This allowed us to have our own meeting space and gave our members the opportunity to set up their own sim or grid in a government-based environment. However, one of the concerns expressed by members was that we were not publicly owned. With our own grid, we were able to better control the issues that we had experienced in Second Life, but with all of us belonging to multiple agencies, we could not create a grid owned by one public organization. And this was an important factor to some wanting to establish a site for their agency.

Fortunately, earlier this year Douglas Maxwell, a science and technology manager with the U.S. Army, established a government-based Opensimulator environment called MOSES. This new grid represents the type of virtual space that many of us in MuniGov had envisioned for GovGrid. And Douglas has been very generous with his offering of free space for agencies and organizations trying to experiment or create space in a place like MOSES. So MuniGov was able to set up a location on MOSES.

With this new option that is government-owned, secure, and well managed, there is no need to continue with running GovGrid. So we made a decision to close the grid down. As for this site, we do get a lot of traffic on pages where we are offering assets for OpenSim. So for now, this site will continue as a place to offer resources and information to others in government.

We appreciate everyone's interest and support with our grid and look forward to seeing you in MOSES!